CHICO — As the global COVID-19 pandemic accelerates in the United States, some California schools returned from spring break this week to a new online reality under California’s shelter in place order — including Chico’s.

It was just over a week ago that Chico State and Butte College announced all classes would be online-only for the rest of the spring semester — converting all in-person classes to virtual distance learning for about seven remaining weeks of instruction.

This gave many instructors and faculty members just three days to prepare their classes for entirely virtual instruction.

Academic Technology Officer Kathy Fernandes said in her realm, staff have been “taking time to see how they’re changing into alternative methods for learning.”

Some faculty will use an asynchronous method of teaching, with meetings at different times of the day and week, while others will stick to the same class time as previously scheduled.

“As you might expect, a performance-based class is figuring out how to use Zoom so that people can play their instrument while a lab class is figuring out are they are going to grab data to analyze and how to manage achieving student learning outcomes,” Fernandes said.

A new reality

Different instructors are affected to varying degrees by the move to online-only classes.

Chris Fosen, who teaches rhetoric and writing in Chico State’s English department, said he and other colleagues in the department are experiencing a relatively minor impact compared with some other courses of study.

Fosen said even though the administration did not make the decision to keep classes all online until during spring break, he thought it would probably happen — “I could tell,” he said, from reports from other schools around the state.

“A lot of the chatter was, wow we’re really making this thing move,” he said. “We knew that if other CSUs were pulling the plug, probably their VPs (vice-presidents) are talking to our VP and their provosts are talking to our provost.”

English students have more readily transferable instructional material for learning online in some ways — “I mean, we’re so ready for students to more reading and writing,” he said.

But the obstacles are still great. Fosen said he disagrees with the idea he said has circulated among some teachers that all lectures and material must be one platform.

“Real online classes take a year or two to prepare … and research for,” Fosen said. “We were given three days. A lot of us probably put in more time than that, though, in the break.”

Hands-on learning

By contrast, Kristina Schierenbeck, who teaches biological sciences, says her classes rely heavily on in-person instruction and the use of labs and demo assignments for instruction. Now, all of those demo projects will need to be provided by video.

“I have no complaints against going online,” Schierenbeck said. However, she has a lot of concern for grading students with the major shift in instruction style.

‘I don’t think the learning is the same,” she said. Activities like field plant collection and dissections of small plant parts using a dissecting scope are no longer possible

However, “The biggest obstacle I see is access for some students who don’t have reliable internet at home,” Schierenbeck said.

“There’s no equity. It’s up to each instructor how they will grade and not every teacher will have the same amount of kindness and tolerance.” She said she has so far received “zero” guidance from her department or from higher administration on how to support or respond to students who are struggling with computer or internet tolerance.

She said she’s also concerned about how much internet bandwidth will continue to be available “as people ramp up their usage.”

Schierenbeck also criticized the “inconsistent messaging” from the university on various issues such as which buildings are open for what purposes — she had hoped to use the Physical Sciences building to film demo activities while it was available, but said it was unclear whether it is closed to faculty.

However she said she thinks in general “people are doing the best they can under the circumstances.”

“We don’t have very strong leadership in the college or admin anyway,” she said. “It’s about what I would expect from them.”

Both professors said they would hope for a switch to a pass or fail grading system, as some schools in the UC system have already done, to better support students having to return to classes during the pandemic.

“We’re here for you. We want you to be healthy,” Schierenbeck said.

Teacher evaluations?

Fosen and Schierenbeck were both skeptical about how student teacher evaluations can still be taken this semester for the last seven weeks of school, now all online, during a pandemic event.

“I already think they’re kind of biased in several ways,” Fosen said. “But we can’t just suspend SETs this semester.”

“it’s up to each teacher how they’ll grade,” Schierenbeck said, adding that she didn’t feel it was right to evaluate teachers at this point in the semester.

“It’s best to just say we’re embarking on a whole new thing,” Fosen said.

“Maybe just evaluate the first eight weeks of the semester? They probably won’t do that, though.”

Laptops for students

According to the university, laptops available to students to borrow can be picked up through Friday, but students must submit a request ahead of time.

According to University Communications’ Sean Murphy and Chico State’s IT Support Services team, 127 laptops for students (100 of these were the EOP students who requested one) and 56 for faculty/staff have been loaned.

As of Wednesday, 58 for students and 50 for faculty/staff were being allocated. Approximately 30-40 laptops were still available as of Thursday and unallocated, with 30-40 requests to be filled.

“ITSS is cautiously optimistic they will be able to satisfy all requests,” Murphy wrote.

Students can make appointments to pick up loaner laptops at https://support.csuchico.edu/TDClient/1984/Portal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=12194 and can pick up requested laptops through Friday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on campus in MLIB 142.

Patrick Newell, dean of Meriam Library, added that the library has checked out 90 web cams to faculty for online teaching. All due dates have been extended until late May (May 22 at the earliest); there will be no fines on books and fines on technology checkout will be waived through May 25, 2020.

Chico State President Gayle Hutchinson was not available to comment to the E-R for this story.

Natalie Hanson covers the city of Chico, seniors and general assignments for the Chico Enterprise-Record after previously editing and writing for A&E. She has written and edited for multiple publications including The Orion at Chico State and is studying journalism and international relations. She is passionate about student journalism, covering the community and quality coffee.